Programs

About Fresh Start Recovery Centre:

Founded in 1992, Fresh Start Recovery Centre (Fresh Start) is a live-in alcohol and drug addiction treatment centre for men in Calgary, Alberta. Fresh Start reports that 90% of Canadians who need treatment do not receive it. In addition to this, it says that 13.6% of Canadians are high-risk drinkers, and 8% of hospitalizations in Canada are a result of substance abuse. Fresh Start recognizes that for recovery to be successful, family and friends must also be able to heal. Therefore, Fresh Start offers treatment for men and a family healing program.

Fresh Start’s 40,000 square foot home has a total of 50 primary treatment beds. The house has 26 residents’ rooms, counselling rooms, a meditation room, a gymnasium, a dining hall, a weight room, a games room, a movie theatre, a laundry room, a wellness clinic, and more. The building is big, vibrant, and designed to feel like a home to create an ideal setting for men and their families to recover.

Fresh Start offers a 14 to 16-week program with one-on-one counselling, group healing, physical training, nutritious meals, and other supports. The program is based on the 12-step abstinence model of recovery. In 2019, 167 men entered Fresh Start’s 12-step live-in program. This is a 27% increase from the 132 men who entered the program in 2018; 2019 marked the highest number of men served in Fresh Start's history.

Fresh Start’s family healing program helps people who are close with an addict deal with the effects of the addiction and learn how to adapt while the addict is recovering. The program runs one night a week for two hours over a five-week period. In 2019, 97 family members were enrolled in the program.

In August 2018, Fresh Start launched its Eleven-Eleven food truck. This project helps Fresh Start to celebrate recovery, educate people about addiction, and generate funds for the charity by selling food. The Eleven-Eleven food truck received coverage from local media and it increased revenues to $28k in 2019 from $19k in 2018. The food truck had an operating loss of ($26k) in 2019 and ($89k) in 2018. Fresh Start also plans to open a recovery cafe with a similar business model.

In 2019, Fresh Start completed the construction of two residential buildings that began construction in 2017 with $7.5m in investment funding from the Government of Alberta. Together, the buildings provide 46 post-treatment beds. The facilities offer supports to integrate people in recovery back into community living.

Results and Impact

Of the 167 men that entered Fresh Start Recovery Centre’s 12-step live-in program in 2019, 142 men (85%) graduated. This 85% graduation rate increased from 66% in 2018 and 72% in 2017.

54% of the 47 men who graduated in 2018 celebrated one full year of recovery. This key outcome compares with a success rate of 60% in 2018.

Considering Fresh Start's 47 graduates celebrating one year of recovery in 2019, as well as its total operating costs of $3.05m from 2018 (including $200k of amortization), it costed $65k to help an addict recover in 2018. This compares with a cost of $46k in 2017 and $37k in 2016.

While Ci highlights these key results, they may not be a complete representation of Fresh Start Recovery Centre’s results and impact.

Charity Intelligence has rated Fresh Start as High impact based on demonstrated impact per dollar.

Impact Rating: High

Finances

Fresh Start Recovery Centre is a ­­­­medium-sized charity, with total donations of $1.6m in F2019. Administrative costs are 4% of revenues. Fundraising costs are 35% of donations, an increase from 14% in F2018. This means overhead costs are 39%. For every $1 donated to the charity, 61 cents go to programs. This is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Fresh Start has funding reserves of $544k, which can cover two months of program costs at the F2019 level. This indicates a need for funding.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Fresh Start Recovery Centre for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on June 3, 2020 by Eric Jose.

Financial Review

Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending December

2019

2018

2017

Administrative costs as % of revenues

4.1%

3.5%

1.1%

Fundraising costs as % of donations

35.2%

13.7%

7.0%

Total overhead spending

39.2%

17.2%

8.1%

Program cost coverage (%)

19.3%

15.9%

164.5%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $s

2019

2018

2017

Donations

1,616,687

1,305,726

1,793,381

Government funding

511,950

1,762,770

5,625,303

Fees for service

1,627,365

1,400,423

1,364,086

Business activities (net)

(26,082)

(88,989)

(7,965)

Other income

280,952

379,216

403,209

Total revenues

4,010,872

4,759,146

9,178,014

Program costs

2,810,588

2,459,782

2,204,688

Administrative costs

163,152

164,871

99,699

Fundraising costs

568,191

179,139

125,121

Other costs

38,864

46,924

54,202

Total spending

3,580,800

2,850,720

2,483,710

Cash flow from operations

430,077

1,908,430

6,694,304

Capital spending

123,702

1,498,540

6,119,990

Funding reserves

543,785

391,657

3,625,752

Note: Over F2017, F2018, and F2019, the Government of Alberta cumulatively donated $7.5m for the construction of the two new residential facilities. Fresh Start transferred ownership back to the Alberta government upon completion of the facilities in F2019, but they are still being operated entirely by Fresh Start. For this reason, Ci has backed out the transfer from the financial analysis, reducing expenses in F2019 by $7.5m. Ci reported restaurant and food truck sales nets of costs. This reduced total revenues and expenses by $54k in F2019, $109k in F2018, and $8k in F2017.

Salary Information

Full-time staff: 26

Avg. Compensation: $74,603

Top 10 staff salary range:

$350k +

0

$300k - $350k

0

$250k - $300k

0

$200k - $250k

0

$160k - $200k

0

$120k - $160k

3

$80k - $120k

1

$40k - $80k

6

< $40k

0

Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2018

Comments & Contact

Comments added by the Charity:

While the Canadian economy in 2018 was surprisingly strong, Alberta did not fare as well because of continued uncertainty around the ability to get natural resources to market. This uncertainty negatively impacted donations to Fresh Start by more than 27% and had an impact on the Fundraising Cost to Dollars donated ratio. A strategic investment in fundraising capacity to develop longer term streams of donations also contributed to the increase in this benchmark.

The poor economy combined with the Opioid (Fentanyl) crisis in 2018 created increased demand and urgency for services. Working to address this demand in addition to a move towards strengthening our post treatment support translated into increase costs and corresponding increase in men celebrating their first full year of sobriety from 53.2% to 60.0%.

The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence Canada and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accept no liability.

Charity Intelligence researches Canadian charities for donors to be informed and give intelligently. Our website posts free reports on more than 750 Canadian charities, as well as in-depth primers on philanthropic sectors like Canada’s environment, cancer, and homelessness. Today over 360,000 Canadians use our website as a go-to source for information on Canadian charities reading over 1.3 million charity reports. Through rigorous and independent research, Charity Intelligence aims to assist Canada’s dynamic charitable sector in being more transparent, accountable and focused on results.